Ninth Circuit lifts Amazon ban on Perplexity agentic shopping tools

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday overturned a ruling that had temporarily barred Perplexity from using its AI-powered agentic shopping tools on Amazon's platform, Reuters reported. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found Amazon was unlikely to succeed on its claim that Perplexity's AI agents violated a federal computer-hacking law. Reuters called it the first federal appeals court decision on whether AI agents acting for users can legally access online platforms. Amazon sued Perplexity in November over the Comet browser and agent that can log into shopping accounts and place orders. A California federal judge had blocked Perplexity in March. The Ninth Circuit said Perplexity's users, employing the company's agents, were the ones who "accessed" Amazon under the law rather than Perplexity itself. Amazon said it disagreed and was evaluating next steps; Perplexity said it would keep fighting for users' choice of AI tools.